


Halves

by Ellsey



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 09:25:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15361374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellsey/pseuds/Ellsey
Summary: Shinji Hirako reflects upon the current state of his life.





	Halves

**Author's Note:**

> Shiyori Week 2018 Day 6! The theme was halves. I kind of hammered the theme. Hahaha.

Shinji Hirako was tired. No, he was exhausted. As captain of the 5th Division, he had more responsibilities than he really ever wanted. One positive for exile, he’d had time to do what he wanted. There was much less of that now. But this wasn’t what was making him so tired. No, that was another issue altogether.

Currently his life was lived in halves. He spent half his time in the Soul Society, the other half in the living world with a particularly trying small blonde. It was a less than ideal arrangement, but she’d made it apparent in no uncertain terms that was not stepping foot in the Soul Society again. That’d been a particularly fun conversation. When he reminded her that she’d gone for Kisuke, that started a tempest that had taken weeks to smooth over.

He spent half the work day waiting to get off so he could spend half his evening on the phone. When he had first come back to the Soul Society she’d been so furious she refused to talk to him. He called and called, desperate for her to understand why he’d gone. She never picked up. Until the one day that she did. He’d been so shocked all his well rehearsed speeches had gone out of his brain. So he started to tell about his day. She must have enjoyed it because she answered again the next day. One evening he was running late, and she called him. The next day his lieutenant asked him why he kept smiling. 

He was half afraid to ask her out on a real date, but he decided the fear was unbecoming a captain of the Gotei. She’d been a bit confused about what exactly he was asking, but he cleared that up quickly and firmly, his lips pressed to hers. There was definitely nothing halfway about that. The time they spent together got longer and longer, until one night Hiyori clung to him, begging him not to leave. And so his current living arrangement was anything but stable.

The spent half their weekends pretending to be any other couple, complete with fights and making up. Well maybe more fights than any other couple, but they certainly made up with gusto. The other half of the time they spent in their own private world, both appreciating that they could have lost the other a number of times in the past century or two. Truthfully they’d both lived pretty charmed lives. Or multiple lives in Hiyori’s case. She had been sliced in half after all.

One night he braves asking her about it. What it was like to know you were dying. He expects her usual fire but instead gets a sigh. She tells him the last thing she remembered was seeing his face and how sad it was. She wanted to throw a shoe and snap him out of it, but she didn’t have a shoe available. At this she gives a small laugh, finding some perverse humor in the situation. Then she tells him something he wasn’t quite expecting.

“I don’t know, I just saw your face and figured if I had to die, at least I was there with you. There were way worse ways to go, you know?”

He squeezed her tight, and she half-heartedly fought him before giving in and settling into his arms. And here it was. The reason he’d keep living his half life. Because his whole heart was with this one woman. That was more than enough reason for him.


End file.
